Sick and GenXausted!

Because existential dread should come with a side of sarcasm.

The other day, I hovered over a Reddit thread asking whether it was “fair” for a teenager to pay for their own phone. I’ve answered these before—always with a solid “yes”—only to be immediately dragged by younger commenters for my alleged cruelty and failure as a hypothetical parent. Spoiler: I don’t have kids. But I had parents. And I distinctly remember funding my entire teenage experience like I was running a sad little lemonade stand inside a capitalist hell maze.

At 12, I started working under-the-table jobs, lying about my age just enough to seem both illegal and industrious. “Extras” didn’t mean frivolous things like concert tickets or sparkly lip gloss. It meant shoes without holes. It meant paying for school field trips and uniforms and the honor of participating in things that wealthier kids took for granted. It meant gas money for the car I shared with my part-time optimism and full-time exhaustion.

Even as a GenXer, I thought maybe I just had it rough. But the comments section—usually a hive of despair and chaos—became a virtual reunion of tired GenX souls. People like me, who started working at 12 and were told to say they were 14. People who paid for their own food, clothes, transportation, and occasionally therapy—but only after something cracked or bled. We didn’t ask for help because we didn’t know where help was kept. Or if it existed. Or if we were even allowed to want it.

And now? Now we’re pushing 60 with the energy of a dial-up modem trying to load TikTok. We’re watching our government—no, our “leadership”—bulldoze the last shreds of hope, health, and human decency like they’re playing Jenga with the Constitution. Every day, another basic protection gets gutted so some billionaire with a vest fetish can squeeze another yacht out of a loophole. Every day, another shrieking fascist muppet posts a threat to democracy via social media, and we all just have to absorb it like we’re human ShamWows.

I’m 57 years old. I’ve been working since I was a child. And now, with a busted back, an anemic bank account, and a front-row seat to the legislative demolition derby, I’m being told the real solution is… what? Grind harder? Learn to code? Manifest abundance with crystals and a gratitude journal?

I’d laugh, but I’m out of serotonin.

I’m tired. Not “didn’t sleep well” tired. I mean “my soul has bags under its eyes” tired. Watching this country devour itself in real time—especially knowing that the poor, the disabled, the elderly, and the most vulnerable are just acceptable losses on the spreadsheet—makes it hard to keep pretending any of this is sustainable.

Surviving the apocalypse was not on my Bingo card. I reject the premise. I demand a recount, a refund, and possibly a quiet cave where I can scream until the raccoons elect me mayor.

Still, somewhere between the rising cost of eggs and the crumbling of every institution that once pretended to protect us, there’s this flicker—a stubborn little pilot light of rage-fueled clarity. I may not be marching every weekend or slapping campaign stickers on my bumper, but I see what’s happening. And that’s something. Awareness is resistance, especially when gaslighting is the national pastime. We’re not crazy. We’re not broken. We’re just living in a system designed to grind us down and then blame us for the dust.

So no, I won’t be quietly fading into irrelevance. I’ll be here, taking notes, remembering names, and waiting for the pendulum to swing back with a vengeance. Karma may be slow, but she drives a garbage truck with no brakes—and baby, I’m on the porch with a folding chair and a lukewarm beer, ready to watch the cleanup.